“A collection of profound and epic album reviews and musical articles by former astronaut and brain surgeon, Alasdair Kennedy. Reaching levels of poetry that rival Keats and Blake, the following reviews affirm Alasdair to be a prodigy, a genius and a god whose opinion is always objectively right. He is also without a doubt the most modest man in the universe.” - Alasdair Kennedy

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Tuesday, 28 July 2015

It's that time of the week where I insult your favourite band accompanied by lots of broken Soundcloud links. Adjust your speakers and belt up.

THE BEST:

'Moving Mountains' –
Disclosure ft. Brendan Reilly

The UK house duo have slowed things down with this slinky
electroballad featuring sexy r&b vocals from London singer Brendan Reilly.
The whole song builds up to some tasty but smooth trap flavourings towards the
end. I’m now pretty psyched for these guys upcoming sophomore album, Caracal. Check out the track here whilst
it’s still available for stream (skip to 1:29:00 to listen).

‘Another Body’ – El-P

Master hip hop producer El-P has recently refrained from making
beats entirely out of cat noises in order to deliver this epic instrumental set
to appear during the end credits of the latest Fantastic Four film. It isn’t
very hip hop flavoured, but still shows off the producer’s talents, composed of
cinematic trumpets, fat strings and brooding layers of electronica. Let’s hope
the movie lives up to it’s soundtrack and isn’t a pile of wank like the
original Fantastic Four film (yeah I said it! Isn’t ‘pile of wank’ such a weird
expression?)

'Get Up Get Down' –
Mick Jenkins

I guess you could call this a party tune. The hook’s punchy
and the beat’s pretty wavy. However, Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins still manages
to drop some socially conscious rhymes in the second half, keeping hold of his witty
personality and preventing himself from turning into another Drake clone.

'Crackula' – Pizza
Tramp

‘What do you get when
you cross a horrible Welsh punk band with zero editing skills and footage shot
on a digital camera. CRACKULA.’ That video description alone has won me
over.

THE WORST:

‘Throne’ – Bring Me The Horizon

Once a shitty metalcore band, Bring Me The Horizon have now
decided to become a shitty carbon copy of Linkin Park. Too harsh? Life is
harsh. Deal with it.

‘Restless’ - New
Order

What decade is this? Out of the blue, eighties electro kings
New Order are back with a new single. Unfortunately, it isn’t very good.
Bernard Summer’s disinterested vocals always had a dark undertone to them, but
here they just simply sound disinterested. Also where are the groovy synths? With
its flat guitars and strings, the whole thing might as well be a modern U2
song.

Saturday, 25 July 2015

Aussie psychedelic rock band, Tame Impala, have traded in rugged
guitars for shiny synths. The result is a sound somewhere between the Blade
Runner soundtrack and those glossy eighties power ballads that I could always
picture myself driving down a highway to at night if I could afford a car and
hadn’t failed my test five times, but anyway we’re getting sidetracked.

Currents doesn't try to sound very current. It's synth textures sound like something Rick Wakeman might have played with. Digital
effects bring it into the 21st Century – lashings of phasering and
jarring looping like a scratched record as found on the epic opener, ‘Let it
Happen’. Lead vocalist Kevin Parker meanwhile delivers high register singing
over the top, swamped in spacey reverb and sighed out with an almost longing
regret.

This vocal tone does lead some of the tracks to feel a bit
samey, but Kevin Parker’s charming lyrics help to spice things up. ‘Cause I’m a
Man’ is an ode to using one’s biology as an excuse for mistakes, that some silly
folk are calling sexist (to which Kevin Parker has responded to in this interview). Others such as ‘Past Life’ take the otherwordly idea of meeting a
lover from a past life.

Lyrically and sonically, the whole album seems to dwell
dreamily and wishfully on the past. There’s an almost – dare I say it – ‘vaporwave’
aesthetic to the whole record. But unlike vaporwave, these are actual
well-structured and original songs. The rock element is certainly gone, which
may put some people off; most of these tracks are indisputably pop. However,
there are still some progressive numbers here such as ‘Let it Happen’ that show
Tame Impala haven’t gone all simple and dumbed-down.

Wednesday, 22 July 2015

Cat noises and train station jingles. You can make a song out of anything these days. A lot of this week's music has been pretty strange. It's an even mixture of entertainingly good and entertainingly bad.

THE BEST:

'No Chill' - Skrillex & Vic Mensa

‘Practice? What the
fuck is practice?’ Chicago rapper Vic Mensa is sounding ridiculously
arrogant here and arrogance usually isn't my thing, but I'm willing to overlook it due to the badass beat. Who knew that the iconic dubstep producer could also
make a mighty trap beat? That brass sounds huge. It’s like a fanfare to the
apocalypse. Listen here.

'Rattle that Lock' - David Gilmour

If you’ve ever spent time in a French railway station you
may recognise the SNCF jingle sampled throughout this song. Personally the
sound brings back nostalgic memories, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of
French commuters find this rock veteran's new song intolerable.

'Like I Like It' - Vantage

Talking of France, here’s a little disco-house tune from the garlic-and-cheese-loving country itself. The funky middle section is extremely
creative and I’m loving the shimmery use of synth vox.

'Meowrly' – Meow the
Jewels

Rap duo Run the Jewels have released a remix of their 2014 single 'Early' made entirely of cat noises. The use of purring as a substitute for bass made me chuckle. I can't believe they didn't think to call it 'Purrly' though...

'I Need Chickens' –
Young Thug

After all the unwavering hate I’ve given garbling Atlanta rapper Young Thug on this blog I
almost regret admitting that I kind of like this song. I guess it appeals to my goofy sense
of humour the same way Riff Raff does. Producer Mike Will Made It delivers a
fun beat complete with 808 cowbell, and Young Thug makes hilarious chicken noises over the
top (they sound more like pigeon noises to be honest, but let's not get pedantic).

THE WORST:

Black Magic – Little Mix

UK girl group, Little Mix, wish they were American whilst promoting the idea that you need to be hot to be successful. That's just the music video.

Monday, 20 July 2015

Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment is a Chicago hip
hop collective consisting of Donnie Trumpet, Nate Fox, Peter Wilkins, Greg
“Stix” Landfair jr and a load of other artists I won’t pretend to have heard of.
About the only member I was familiar with beforehand was kooky emcee, Chance the Rapper, who
provides bars on most of these tracks.

Together, the collective come together to create the
happiest hip hop record you’re likely to hear this year. Chance the rapper
scraps commonly found themes of misogyny, materialism and braggadocio, instead
preaching wholly positive morals of self-love and individualism. I say ‘preach’
– his method of delivery is anything but preachy. He modestly refuses to be a
role model which only adds to his appeal: ‘don’t
you look up to me/ don’t trust a word I say’. He also has no interest in
being cool ‘I don’t wanna be cool, I just
wanna be me’, which conversely makes him all the more cool.

The backing instrumentation is meanwhile provided by the
rest of the group’s members - a bouncy mix of soul and jazz with all the air of
a childhood summer party. Through the groovy basslines and bright splashes of
piano you can taste the birthday cake and picture visualise the balloons.

Sadly this project isn’t without its flaws – despite the
bubbly atmosphere there’s no denying that the party can feel overcrowded at
times. Alongside the many members of Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment
are a horde of guest stars including Busta Rhymes, Big Sean, J Cole, Janelle
Monae, B.o.B, Quavo, Joey Purp, Raury, BJ the Chicago Kid and Erykah Badu.
Songs like ‘Go’ and ‘Slip Slide’ feel a bit messy because of all the
contributors fighting to be heard.

Other songs contrastingly feel sorely underdeveloped. Songs like
‘Rememory’ never reach a climax or a hook, trailing off rather unexcitedly. The
many trumpet interludes peppered throughout the album in which Donnie Trumpet
shows off his horn-playing also feel redundant because they don’t really go
anywhere.

That said the album does have some moments of perfection, namely the catchy and adorable tracks 'Sunday Candy' and 'Wanna Be Cool'. Here the amount of guest contributors isn't overwhelming and there's a clear sense of song structure and finesse. A whole album of these kind of hits would have made Surf feel much more cohesive.

Wednesday, 15 July 2015

As per usual, I round up my favourite and least favourite tracks from the last seven days. Enjoy!

THE BEST:

‘Sugar’ – IshDARR

This bouncy hip hop single from Wisconsin newcomer IshDARR
certainly lives up to it’s name – it’s adorably sugary. Sweet lyrics ride an
uptempo beat made up of bright synths and squeaky pitch-shifted vocals.

‘EML Ritual’ –
Chemical Brothers

Built around a sinister synth riff, this new track from EDM legends
The Chemical Brothers is a masterpiece in suspense. I was convinced there would
be a drop around the two minute mark, but the Manchester duo keep up the
teasing for another minute until finally giving in.

‘Sleep Talk’ – Diet
Cig

Few songs capture love with such realistic and idiosyncratic
detail as this new indie rock single: ‘I
can’t play instruments very well and I eat all your cereal/ but I’ll never be a
smoker cos the second cigarette makes me feel like shit’. The New Paltz duo
might not be all that instrumentally, but their lyrical wit and charm certainly
makes up for it. ‘Diet Cig’ is also one of the best band names I’ve heard all
year.

‘Raindrops’ – CONFZ ft. Jamilah Barry

East London rapper CONFZ offers some impressive wordplay, although it's not quite enough to distract from phenomenally spacey beat in the background. All that's missing from this track is a hook.

'Impression of You' - Giraffage & Viceroy ft. Patrick BakerIf you're looking for a babymaking anthem this summer, look no further than this sexy electropop tune. Trap 808s, synth-harp arpeggios and woozy chords create the perfect backdrop for Patrick Baker's breathy vocals. I hate the word 'eargasm', but I think I just had one.

THE WORST:

‘Stay Up’ – Problem

'Good money, good weed/ that's the way you stay up'. These lyrics are absolute gibberish. It's like listening to a trap rap parody.

Tuesday, 7 July 2015

When you’ve listened to as much soul and funk as I have you
begin to get desensitised to the slinky chords and groovy basslines. Everyone
becomes another wannabe-Stevie-Wonder, another wannabe-Steely-Dan. It takes an
artist like LA producer, singer and bassist Thundercat to prove that funk and
soul still has room to evolve.

The Beyond/Where The
Giants Roam is barely an album at seventeen minutes in length, but feels
grand in scale. Each song, produced by Flying Lotus, feels epic drenched in
spooky and huge reverb, particularly the vocals. Stylistically, Thundercat lays
down his signature stamp with unique chord progressions, almost dissonantly
sour but equally pretty. His lyrics meanwhile are dark and melancholy. ‘Song
for the Dead’ is self-explanatory, whilst ‘Them Changes’ is a song about
literally losing one’s heart.

The dynamics are brilliant throughout, more so than previous
Thundercat albums, making this feel like the most complete release in the
artist’s discography. Punchy and concise funk number, ‘Them Changes’, is
immediately proceeded by slow and brooding number, ‘Lone Wolf and Cub’, showing
that Thundercat can be just as energetic as he can be atmospheric. And yet as
dynamic as the album is, the overall sweet and gloomy mood is cohesive throughout.

THE BEST:

'100' – The Game ft.
Drake

Whilst The Game still strikes me as a pretty generic rapper,
there’s no denying how cool Drake’s passive aggressive sighed guest verse is: ‘I would have all your fans if I didn’t go
pop and I stayed on some conscious shit’. The beat is also bloody gorgeous.

'That Instead of This' – Toro y Moi

Continuing to dabble in new genres, singer and producer Chaz
Bundick AKA Toro y Moi goes down a brooding electronic route with this new
instrumental made up of sinister bass and screeching synths. I wasn’t all too
keen on the musician’s recent indie funk endeavours, but perhaps there’s hope
with this new darker sonic direction.

'When I Was Your Age' –
Mammoth Penguins

Being a twenty-something millennial I’m constantly aware of how
little I’ve achieved at my age compared to what my parents did. I don’t have my
own house. I don’t have my own car. I’M NOT EVEN POTTY TRAINED (just kidding - or am I?).
‘When I Was Your Age’ is a song that any twenty-something feeling
unaccomplished can relate to. Here’s hoping this Cambridge alt rock band
continues to put out songs of this calibre.

'Freedom' – Pharrell

Pharrell Williams has dropped his surname and started getting political. 'Freedom' is a far cry from the cheerful sound of 'Happy' (Pharrell even sounds a bit angry as he's screeching the hook) and whilst it isn't quite as catchy as previous releases, it's interesting to hear the singer pushing his lyricmanship.

THE WORST:

'Finna Get Loose' –
Puff Daddy ft. Pharrell Williams

I was constantly waiting for Puff Daddy to stop rambling over the beat and start
rapping. Pharrell's constant yelping in the background is also prety damn annoying.